Patricia Mukhim, editor of the Shillong Times, has quit the Editors Guild of India, accusing it of defending only “celebrity” journalists. The immediate reason for her resignation was the guild’s silence over the Meghalaya High Court's recent ruling against her over a Facebook post.

In her resignation letter to the guild’s president, Seema Mustafa, on Monday, Mukhim complained that in contrast to her case, the association had rushed to support Arnab Goswami, who is not a member of the guild and who was arrested not for his journalistic work but for alleged abetment to suicide, the Deccan Herald reported.

“As such, it is no longer tenable for me to be part of this hallowed group of editors whose loyalties are to those that occupy a certain elite space,” the daily quoted Mukhim from her resignation letter. “In fact, I feel completely out of place; almost an outlier in the Guild.”

The high court’s order, which Mukhim said she had shared with the guild in the hope it would issue a statement condemning it, refused to quash a police complaint against her for a July 4 Facebook post about an assault on a group of non-tribal boys purportedly by some tribal people in Lawsohtun, Shillong. The court ruled that Mukhim’s post “sought to create a divide to the cordial relationship between tribals and non-tribals”, the Print reported.